The Costumers

"I used to dress up neighborhood kids in my mother's clothes," begins Joyce Ostrin, owner of the costume outpost Early Halloween (left, with her brother and advisor Art), as she explains the origins of an enterprise that grew from a backyard family business to a Chelsea mainstay. "Tony Perkins, John Belushi, David Bowie, Sid Vicious and Nancy, drag queens from the Chelsea Hotel--they lived in the area and came into the store," Ostrin says. The Great Gatsby was her first coup, then came Annie Hall, Zelig, and the rest of the Woodies. The fashion, photography, and magazine worlds followed (the company regularly scores a Vanity Fair credit), and now Early Halloween is considered the City's foremost source of vintage apparel rentals. With television series like Law & Order, The Cosby Show, and The Sopranos to her credit, she's recently dressed Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind, Will Smith in Ali, and, again, Woody Allen, for his The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. -- Renfreu Neff, City Magazine